Ashperton

Ashperton is now a long strung out village flanking the main Gloucester to Leominster road, and is a mixture of old and new housing.

The name Ashperton is made up from the old English aesc (ash tree) and peretun, (pear orchard), and the village originally belonged to the Grandison family of Norman origin.

From a genealogist’s point of view, it was a farming community with few if any amenities, and people would have had to travel into Ledbury, the nearest town, for provisions, and also to attend the thriving market. The Hereford/Gloucester canal passed through both Ledbury and Ashperton, and would no doubt have been useful for transporting goods but this closed in 1881, and only very short stretches of it remain.

Ashperton’s Railway History

In the mid 19th century, the West Midland train line passed through Ashperton, and on market days a concession had been granted by the railway authorities allowing a train to stop once, each way, to allow people to easily get to Ledbury and back; it was reported that the people of Ashperton were not slow to take advantage of this, and it was an extremely popular concession. However at other times the train service was appalling, with people frequently having to wait up to 7 hours at Ledbury before getting a train that stopped at Ashperton. In December 1866, after much petitioning, it was finally agreed that the 2.10 Worcester to Hereford train would stop at Ashperton on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and trains were also made available to transport the hop pickers to the area each Autumn.

The station was finally closed after Nationalisation of the railways and demolished in 1966.